John Houston and the Tall Tale of Calgary’s 20‑Foot Fence

If you’ve spent any time exploring Golden’s early newspapers, you’ve likely met John Houston — the sharp‑tongued, quick‑witted editor of The Donald Truth during its brief but memorable run from 1888 to 1889. Houston never let a lack of news get in the way of a good story. If the facts didn’t cooperate, he simply invented better ones. His favourite targets were big corporations like the CPR and politicians of every stripe, but no community was entirely safe from his pen.

One of Houston’s more colourful feuds involved the city of Calgary. The origins of his irritation aren’t entirely clear, though it may have been sparked by a writer for the Winnipeg Call, Henry Norman, who painted Donald as “the toughest place in the Dominion,” populated by “crooks, card sharps and bummers of all kinds.” He went on to describe Donald’s main streets as “an unbroken series of saloons” and dismissed the community as “a place of not the slightest importance.”

Calgary’s newspapers, sensing an opportunity for mischief, leapt to Donald’s defence — but with a wink. Their tongue‑in‑cheek commentary must have delighted Houston, because on June 30, 1888, The Donald Truth published one of the most elaborate satirical pieces of the era: a mock report claiming that Calgary City Council planned to build a 20‑foot fence around the entire city.

What followed was a masterclass in frontier satire.

Houston described Calgary’s merchants as “mere babes” who were constantly being swindled by confidence men, and its church‑going citizens as dangerously susceptible to the “immoral ranchers” of Red Deer and Sheep Creek. According to the article, the situation had become so dire that council called a special meeting to protect both the city’s wallets and its morals.

From there, Houston introduced a cast of fictional councillors, each more dramatic than the last. One complained that he couldn’t be expected to supervise the “stupid clerks” of rival businesses. Another insisted that unless Calgary cracked down on outsiders, the city would never become the permanent seat of either the Episcopal bishopric or the Roman Catholic diocese — a fate apparently too terrible to contemplate.

The proposed solution? A massive wooden fence enclosing most of Calgary, with a single guarded gate. Only those with impeccable pedigrees — or those selling goods on generous credit — would be allowed in. Section 16, described as morally beyond saving, was to be left outside the enclosure entirely.

The council, in Houston’s telling, passed the resolution by a vote of five to one before adjourning to the Board of Trade for “a little rye,” the preferred drink of “strictly prohibition towns like Calgary.”

And, of course, Houston ended with a flourish: “The fence is reported rapidly nearing completion.”